Runway obstacle detection by controlled spatiotemporal image flow disparity

This paper proposes a method for detecting obstacles on a runway by controlling their expected disparities. By approximating the runway by a planar surface, the initial model flow field (MFF) corresponding to an obstacle-free runway is described by the data from on-board sensors (OBS). The error variance of the initial MFF is computed and used to estimate the MFF. Obstacles are detected by comparing the expected residual flow disparities with the residual flow field (RFF) estimated after warping (or stabilizing) an image using the MFF. Expected temporal and spatial disparities are obtained from the use of the OBS. This allows us to control the residual disparities by increasing the temporal baseline and/or by utilizing the spatial baseline if distant objects cannot be detected for a given temporal baseline. Experimental results for two real flight image sequences are presented